Stupid and Boring

Rating: 4/10 (14 April 2018)

An incredible waste of $190M. The first twenty minutes were pure cringe; I was hoping, but not expecting, that it would somehow be a self-satire, considering it was as obnoxiously over-the-top as the Alliance military culture in Starship Troopers, but alas, no. Entirely sincere.
The only good things of substance were the performances and the bits of passable dialog between Elba, the blonde guy (the main one, not the 5 other ones), and Kikuchi. The script was interminably and unrepentantly stupid without a shred of self awareness. There is no sense of what's going on in the wider world, and the action scenes - despite having technically competent effects and production design - were just boring. Another entirely derivative and forgettable action film, barely having a personality past its formula. The child actor playing little Mako in the flashback sequence was incredible, however. Bravo.
PS If you want an actually compelling alien sci-fi actioner, watch Edge of Tomorrow. The very ending doesn't make sense, but it's compelling throughout.